Many Muslims across the country are not only sick and tired of scaremongering from our newspapers, but are also worried that such outrageous reporting will further inflame tensions across the country. Either the Sun is being dangerously irresponsible in order to sell papers, or it is intentionally playing dumb. Because any expert will warn of the fallacy of making such misleading inferences from this type of poll.

Dr Maria Sobolewska, a senior lecturer in quantitative methods at the University of Manchester, has studied in depth the 14 polls of British Muslim opinion in the 18 months after the 2005 bombings in London. She says: “Public opinion polls have no value for estimating the number of prospective and likely extremists and terrorists,” and that it is “truly scary to think that our counterterrorism policy may rely on these polls”.

She noted how results varied depending on the way the question was asked. David Anderson, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, voiced similar concerns in section 9.20 of his annual report this year.

There are two main reasons why we have to be careful about such polling. First, there is no control group, so we are unable to see how many more Muslims think in this way than Britons of other faiths. You may think that under similar polling, we would see none of those of other faiths seeming to show sympathy with “jihadis”, but you’d be wrong. According to a YouGov poll in 2011, around 30% of non-Muslims claimed suicide attacks could sometimes be justified as they “understand why some people might behave in that way”. Similarly, between 20% and 40% of Northern Irish respondents reported some “sympathy” for violent loyalism or republicanism in the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey 2007. In essence, Muslims and non-Muslims answer these questions in a similar way.

Second, the way the question is asked makes a big difference, with broad terms such as “sympathy” generating a larger number. A 2006 ICM poll for the Daily Telegraph found that 20% of British Muslims had sympathy with the “feelings and motives” of the 7/7 bombers, but only 1% (not meaningfully different from 0%) thought that what they did was right. Similarly, conditional support for terrorism was expressed by between 2% (also not meaningfully different from 0%) and 22% of Muslims, depending on the question asked. What this means is that the answer you get depends on the question you ask.

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In this case, the poll conducted by Survation does not actually ask whether people have sympathy for Isis or jihadis; it asks whether they have sympathy for those fighting in Syria. This makes a considerable difference as there are many rebel groups fighting against President Assad, some of whom even have the support of western governments. It is possible that those of all faiths may have sympathy for these individuals.

Of course even a small percentage of supporters of Isis is unacceptable. But without an academic leading this work and further research being carried out, as I called for after the Charlie Hebdo attacks earlier this year, we cannot deduce that from this poll. And we will continue to see the same polling yielding the same meaningless results and the same scaremongering.

Britons of all faiths, including Muslims, are resolute against terrorism and Isis, as was demonstrated by the reactions to the horrific attacks in Paris. Witness the full-page advertisement run by the Muslim Council of Britain. I have yet to come across a single Muslim who believes that one in five have sympathy for Isis, which was the implication of the Sun front page. How can a national paper get away with such dangerous rhetoric? Do they not care if Muslims are attacked as a result?

We do need a free press, able to report stories without fear, but can such a wilfully negligent and irresponsible front page, in the face of a record rise in hate crime against Muslims, really be acceptable in our society? The answer may not be regulation, but my hope is that it is improved religious literacy and basic decency.